FlightRadar24 - high traffic following invasion

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Is anyone else monitoring the air traffic on FlightRadar24? There was an 8 minute wait to get on to the website!

Lots of military aircraft.

Hmm, interesting. I'm still tracking this USAF plane from Ramstein, Germany, it has been flying in loops for over an hour now. It's LAGR133, currently looping overhead Nowy Sacz, in Southern Poland.

@Crankley

Hmm, interesting. I'm still tracking this USAF plane from Ramstein, Germany, it has been flying in loops for over an hour now. It's LAGR133, currently looping overhead Nowy Sacz, in Southern Poland.

That’s one of the USAF refuelling tankers. There’s been up to three of them in the same holding pattern, so probably safe to assume there’s other USAF aircraft around which can’t be seen on the trackers.

Sorry to @Crankley that @notimagain had answered this already, apologies.

Ah that makes sense.

I've been following a Moscow - Thessalonniki flight that took off 15 mins before the EU announcement and has had to turn back.

The helicopter on the right is USAF too.

What’s the flight number KenAdams

Oh this one from Moscow to New York has turned back.

@YouSayYesISayNo

Here's another US airforce flight from Mildenhall trying to land in Romania

Don’t think so.

It’s a KC-135 (tanker) out of Mildenhall.

Looks like he’s been on a towline (that’s holding pattern) for quite some time, presumably giving fuel away to fighters, etc, and it looks to my eyes as if he’s now heading back to Mildenhall.

Yep, the RAF aircraft looks to be doing similar.

The USAF / RAF crews have got some stamina being up in the air for as long as they have…

Anyone know what this Spanish Air Force plane is likely to be doing? There was a US one close to it earlier but it seems to have vanished now.

Spanish airforce in the area now too, near the Poland/Ukraine border.

@BabbleBee

The USAF / RAF crews have got some stamina being up in the air for as long as they have…

I’m not sure the flight times in themselves are generally that excessive for example it looks like the one going back to Mildenhall we mentioned earlier will end being airborne for maybe 9 or 10 hours,

However hats off to the crews anyway - what they are doing will be stressful, hard work and if it’s the same crews flying day after day after day it will be very fatiguing.

@YouSayYesISayNo

I find it amazing that they can refuel mid-flight. I mean, I know in my head that they can, but it still seems one of those bizarre things that comes from some sort of scifi film.

I know we can't see the refuelled planes, but working on the principle that there's been a refuelling plane there for pretty much the last 6 hours, where are those smaller planes and what are they doing?

My private jet got to the Moldovan border and disappeared

Rumour has it they are main refueling NATO fighters that are “on patrol”, flying along up against the NATO side of the Ukraine border.

Those fighter pilots will be doing long flights (due the refueling) strapped into hard seats without all the comforts such as a toilet and hot drinks etc that the tanker crews will almost certainly have.

@YouSayYesISayNo

interesting, to quote the BBC, quoting Ursula von der Leyen,

"We are shutting down EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft," she said.
All such planes, including the private jets of oligarchs, will now be unable to land in, take off from or fly over any EU nation.”

Russian planes have also been banned from UK airspace.

There's a private jet going from Luxembourg now in Russian airspace.

I wonder what this one's up to?